The Merchant Of Venice * Michael Radford (2004)

A fairly dull film made of Shakespeare’s play. Naturally this is a costume drama. The creators decided to keep the Shakespeare dialogues, so they are often lengthy and ‘flowery’. This works better in some other Shakespeare films.

There is a merchant who takes a loan from a Jew (not the best part of Al Pacino) for a youngster (Joseph Fiennes) who wants to win the princess Portia. The loan has some pretty strange conditions that Shylock (the Jew) sets out to enforce.